Saturday, February 11, 2017

Supernatural, Season 12, Episode 11: Regarding Dean

Dean is doing his happy evening hunting and chasing a
witch – who blasts him with some woo-woo

He wakes up the next day feeling hung over and unpleasant
and has to get Sam in to pick him up while he eats and entire town’s supplies
of waffles.

He doesn’t remember what happened last night, much to Sam’s
frustration since they are on a case to find out who has murdered and
accountant.

As they go back to investigate, Dean has more and more
lapses and Sam assumes Dean is still drunk, completely out of it (yet is still
happy for Dean to drive? Not cool, Sam). Dean is very shaky, forgetting all
kinds of things – like which key is his car key – but Sam’s main take so far is
that Dean needs to ease off on the partying since he isn’t 20 any more

Ouch Sam, ouch.

As they investigate Dean seems more and more blurry – and
even queasy when they examine the body which has clearly been killed by
witches. At this point Sam realises Dean’s memory loss is more than mere
alcohol can explain and suspects some definite woo-woo

Who you gonna call? Rowena of course. Because they’re
friends now? Whatever, she interrupts her cheating card game to confirm that,
yes, there is a very nasty spell that will slowly erase Dean’s memories and he probably
has to kill the witch to stop that happening

And soon since Dean forgets the word for “lamp” and Sam
starts labelling things with post its.

So they need to find the witch –which means following
where Dean wandered last night, helpfully finding a woman he slept with (who
was duly furious that he forgot her. Then duly horrified that his memory loss
means he may have been drugged. She thinks she may have had sex with someone
incapable of consenting. And kudos to Supernatural
for recognising the horror of this, that it would be rape and it can happen –
yes they almost make a joke of it –but they manage to not run with it as
humour). Following the clues they find the witch

Or his body. Yes he’s dead and no the memory spell is not
gone. So back to Rowena –who decides to follow up with a visit to
reinvestigate. The runes used by the witches point to an ancient druidic family
who have an uber powerful book which Rowena wants badly – and they’ll need her
to use it to reverse the spell on Dean

Of course Sam doesn’t really trust her on that.

But Dean has degraded a lot. And he’s really funny and
cute like this. I wanna Smoosh him. He’s weet and happy and careful and when he
hears they hunt monsters (having forgotten everything) he thinks it’s so cool.
Honestly this whole portrayal is awesome – Dean without all the Manpain, the
angst, the guilt, the anger, the injuries and all the darkness is such a
different person and it’s so well done. The acting and feel of this whole thing
– and how bright and fun Dean is – is really fun, really cute (I wanna smoosh
him) and really sad when we see basically, this is an undamaged Dean. Dean who
was never burned through the Hunter’s life. It’s pretty poignant.

Sam goes hunting witches while Rowena babysits Dean

And we have the next emotional moment of this episode –
Rowena

While almost bursting Dean’s bubble by pointing out he’s killed
people (Dean is saddened and comes down from his super cute mode by this
realisation) – but only for the greater good. While she has done anything and everything
and justified it because it was for power – because power is everything

But last season she saw god and god’s sister. The most
powerful beings in the universe – and they’re consumed by squabbling and
unhappiness. If they’re miserable with all that power then what chance does she
have? Clearly the whole point of Rowena’s existence – pursue power – has been
shaken to its very core. I think we can see a very real character shift from
Rowena here

Sam doesn’t do so well against the witches and ends up
being kidnapped and prepped for human sacrifice

Surprisingly nor does Rowena – she’s completely
outmatched by one of the witches. Given her power that means the druid witches
have some pretty massive woo-woo.

Which
is when Dean, happily railroaded by many many postits (I love that some of the
weapons in his boot have “no” written on them) manages to intervene with the
right gun and all the witches end up dead.

Rowena uses the book to cure Dean – and Sam admits they
owe her. While also ensuring she doesn’t leave with the book. Of course she
tried

But Sam also confronts how very happy and light and free
amnesia Dean was… and Dean admits that but also that it wasn’t him. Dean has
been forged, for good or bad, by his life – you can’t remove that without
removing him even if he is happy like that